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+# The two agent branches, measured — for whoever merges
+
+`PROTOCOL.md` says *"Commit to `auto/<topic>`; a human merges."* Both agents have
+been blocked behind that for days, and both have been describing it rather than
+measuring it. Measured 2026-08-31:
+
+| branch | ahead of `main` | behind | `main` an ancestor? | files |
+|---|---|---|---|---|
+| `auto/build-ordinal-audit` (decoder) | **328** | **0** | **yes** — fast-forward | 327 |
+| `auto/port-p6-audio` (port) | **257** | **0** | **yes** — fast-forward | 58 |
+
+✅ **Each is individually a fast-forward with nothing to resolve.**
+
+✅ **And they do not conflict with each other.** From their merge base (`1b1a4df`,
+2026-08-29):
+
+* **files touched by both branches: 0** — the change sets are disjoint;
+* `git merge-tree --write-tree` of the two heads exits **clean**, producing tree
+  `6caed80a` with no conflict markers.
+
+**So both can be merged, in either order, with zero conflicts.** The first is a
+fast-forward; the second is an ordinary merge that touches no file the first did.
+
+⚠️ **Nothing here was merged.** `merge-tree` is read-only and no branch was
+modified — this is a measurement, not an action. Merging is the human's, and
+neither agent may do it.
+
+## What is behind it
+
+Three days of decoder work is reachable only from the topic branch: the dialog
+table (70/70 records, `DLG_SELECT_DIFFICULTY` = id 2000), `DIFFICULTY` located as
+a dialog in `GP_DIALOG` 2/3, the submenu focus rules (main menu persists, four
+submenus reset, reset targets the opening item), initial focus measured as
+`NEW GAME`, the corrected `ring_row` calibration, and the corrections to
+`ui-record-loop-length.md`'s argument and the dialog record layout.
+
+📌 **The cost of the gap is not hypothetical.** The port spent days reading
+`main`'s 926-line `HANDOFF.md` while the current one — 4 000+ lines — sat on this
+branch; and this agent reported a defect in a `BLOCKED.md` row from a copy two days
+stale. Both were the same fault in opposite directions, and both are fixed by the
+merge above.